Next-Gen Perceptions and The Time For Change

Ian Fisher writes: Usually the arrival of a next-gen console results in gamers being excited about what the future holds since seeing how games will evolve and be pushed is something that we ultimately wait six to seven years to see. But with how the video game industry is, and the world economy for that matter, do gamers and in turn the industry need to re-evaluate what truly constitutes a next-gen game?
(Industry, PC, PS3, The Last Of Us, Wii U, Xbox 360)

The Last of Us is 10 times better than anything Nintendo or Microsoft will come up with on their next gen consoles. The PS3 is basically a next generation console because developers are only now realizing it's full potential.It's power has only begun to be fully harnessed. What does that tell you about how powerful the PS4 will be? I drool just thinking about it because I know 10 years from now they will only be scratching the surface of what the PS4 will be able to do. Long Live Play

The Last of Us looks fantastic and i do think it will blow alot of people out of the water, but to say Microsoft and Nintendo can't even touch it on next gen systems is just silly.

Just to clarify before i say this, i own PS3/360/PC so no bias from me, but PS3 isn't next gen and cracks are starting to show in both PS3 and 360 now, just look at Assassins Creed and Far Cry 3 for evidence, these newer engines and devs wanting to push hardware is really starting to show the current systems limitations.

To say Last Of Us will be better than anything available next gen is a bit ridiculous. With 13 platinums and 60+ games it's fair to say i really like my PS3 but i have to respectfully disagree.

Watch Dogs, BioShock Infinite, and GTA V look better than The Last of Us in terms of pure gameplay opportunity, and probable story length. Don't be silly.

The Last of Us is special this gen because of the story with heart, character development and fine portrayal from their respective actors, the non-campy/jokey survival horror setting, its spectacular AI, the way in which it showcases the dark & gritty side of the human condition, the translation of emotion to the player through their actions in gameplay, the choices you can make in such gameplay like the approach to each scenario (combat or stealth) and item management decisions.

It's not wacky and 'out there'. It's very grounded, realistic and displays the permanence of death like not many games do, or have done in the past.

And the decisions - Do you bother searching all rooms for vital supplies that could help you later? or go through without collecting anything that might save you life later in the game?

Do you combine items in one way or another. e.g. Do you use a binding to heal your wounds (defensive) or do you combine the binding with a bottle of alcohol to create a molotov cocktail (offensive)?

Do you help fellow survivors that you meet or do you keep your resources to your own person? Do you explore and interact with the environment to find the beauty in isolation and what has happened to the world since the outbreak, as well as background to Joel and Ellie's past?

These decisions are what forms the emotional backbone to this game, and all these things make it special, not just the hardware.

@killzoner there is a reason you only have 1 bubble ant is you talk bubbles, you must be a spotty kid living in your mums basement to come up with that, by the way im looking farward to last of us but im also looking farward to rayman legends and zelda when it comes. but on a serious note apart from the characters what sets it apart from uncharted even the lead character looks a bit like drake.

"apart from the characters what sets it apart from uncharted even the lead character looks a bit like drake."

Read my post above. There are several things that set it apart from Uncharted. The Last of Us is not pulp-action or pulp-adventure like Uncharted. It's a grounded, serious, survival action adventure game with horror elements. It has a different art style to match the tone of the game world. The combat is not flamboyant, and it's not full of disposable shooting galleries with ammo pickups everywhere like in many games including Uncharted. The enemies look, feel and act real and their deaths look to have an emotional impact beyond them falling over after 10 bullets to the chest. The character interaction is not campy like Uncharted but meant to display the grim nature of the post-apocalyptic society or lack thereof. The AI is superb and tests the player, it really tests you. The gameplay opportunities have been significantly expanded from what you can expect in Uncharted - "wide linear" gameplay with item management, a wider range of tools for combat, and real decisions that affect the outcome of your condition and your inventory.

So really, one is about a dude who travels the world hunting treasure, and the other is an intimate character piece about a post-apocalyptic world where a man has to protect a girl from brutal encounters, whilst trying to survive himself - and has a completely different vibe. Yep, VERY similar.

And you can't really say that the lead character looking "a bit like drake" is any sort of deep comparison.

With the rise of indie games and all consoles having a built in online store to buy them, we'll be seeing more games like Journey. There will always be room for big companies to release their AAA games but I think console gamers are already open to less than steller graphics if the game itself is good.

Here's what people don't understand. The economy. Just about every bank in the world is broke 50-1000x over. Why? Well 1.4 quadrillion (that's 1400 trillion) in fraudulent derivatives ARE the economy.

You see when we repealed Glass-Steagall we allowed the deposits (aka Banks) to be combined with the hedge funds and insurance arms of Wall Street. Thus we got derivatives.

During the time the derivatives were going from a few hundred billion to over a thousand trillion, the profit was used to fund low interest rate loans into shoddily made homes, outsourced and now imported products from China and other sweatshop labor capitals, and pay for imperial wars of conquest. Part of this money went into funding all the dotcoms and video game devs out there.

Well that time is gone.

So certain rules we ignored for a decade or so are coming back. Devs can only make games that sell, or else they are going to go out of business. The easy loans won't be there, especially when many are already neck deep in the cheap loans.

We're also in a time where the progression of tech is slowing without major alterations. More cores. More graphics cards. More wattage. That sort of thing.

We still are heading for a showdown to how small we can make chips. What will they do when they get when a transistor is the size of a single atom? Pretty hard to make it smaller than that. Well basically we're at 22nm so there really isn't much further to go. There's all sorts of problems with electrical leakage at current and past node processes. It only gets worse from here. (remember people electricity needs to flow through these ever narrowing pathways...hence the problems with leakage)

So yes, the entire games industry is in for a major change.

Game devs can't borrow to the hilt anymore Consumers can't spend more than they earn anymore Tech makers like Intel, Nvidia, etc are getting hard pressed to produce better products.

Oh there will still be borrowing, consuming, and inventing, it's just not going to be like how it used to be.

Remember though, everything could collapse at anytime as the derivatives problem hasn't been fixed anywhere in the world. Obama's a wall street whore. So are the republicans. Whoops.

Then realize this is worldwide. Britain, who we in America do anything they tell us. Invade here. Repeal Glass-Steagall there. So on and so forth won't do it. Neither will anyone else.

Which means...nothing is fixed, everything is getting worse under the surface. When bailouts happen at the top, like in 2008-2009, they went to stop the derivatives from collapsing, so derivatives have priority above everyone else and everything, and when they finally either get us in debt to the point of hyperinflation and everything collapses, your banking deposits are the collateral for the derivatives.

The solution is simple, but no Wall Street whore will allow it. So everyone in Washington, London, Brussels, Berlin, and China and the developing world don't know what the hell to do.

Glass-Steagall ..and realize that everything about gaming is changing. One way or another. Lack of funds for devs or for consumers. Or the technological barriers we are getting to that are forcing more expensive workarounds (more cores, more graphics cards, etc).